We’re nicely into the New Year where trends start to take shape, and what a year 2015 is shaping up to be! We have the election campaigns moving into full gear. This year’s election promises to be one of the tightest races in recent history with the expected increase spend to match. All of which means that the main political parties are now looking to persuade swing voters to their party’s political views and increase their chance of forming a new government.

With all of the predictions pointing to the Conservatives outspending Labour by three to one in this election, it is clear there is a need for the main parties to know what the constituents are thinking if they are to persuade the swing voters. A key way to understand if campaigns are working is to measure their success by opinion polling.

One of the polling methods used by research companies is Random Digit Dialling (RDD) the intention is to create a random sample of respondents in a constituency.

One of the downfalls with (RDD) polling is not hitting the right constituencies during calling time. This will create a bias in polling and may swing polls in the wrong direction and in turn provide incorrect information to clients. With this problem in mind, and with the aim of improving polling, Data8 have created a RDD Constituency Index. This index will help ensure any RDD campaigns are hitting the correct constituencies and therefore getting more accurate information for clients.

On top of the RDD Constituency Index Data8 offers more services that can help improve polling efforts. By adding demographic information to an existing database it can ensure that the creation of any bias with any calling is reduced. It is also possible to increase the amount of telephone numbers that are contactable by making the most of our consented data pool of over 120 million telephone numbers.

If you are looking to improve your polling accuracy why not speak to our polling expert, Richard Davies, about our RDD Constituency Index and using our demographic information to profile accurately.